Waking Up

White Iris

A friend told me the other day that when you put your nose right down deep into the heart of an iris, you can smell Kool-Aid, which means of course, that you can get a good whiff of bygone days.

So I tried it, and sure enough, I could smell cherry Kool-Aid. And then I remembered how it came in paper packets, and all it took to mix it up was water and heaps and heaps of white sugar. It was about 10-cents a packet, and my mother stirred it with a wooden spoon in a glass pitcher adorned with cherries and oranges.

I was surprised that I had never smelled an iris before. Unlike a peony or a rose or a bunch of lilacs, an iris is more elegant and refined than it is approachable. I remember the great purple bearded ones that grew alongside the Presbyterian church in Honeoye Falls, where I grew up. Ever since, I marvel at the stately irises growing in gardens and along fences, but I admire from afar, never pick them and never bury my face in one.

Maybe because it’s June and the light lingers long into the soft, gray evenings, something in me is waking up too, wanting to savor more of the day and its exquisite, barely noticed moments. This morning, the light at 4:30 dawned behind my eyes, illuminating a dream, sweeping away the night. Layered cereal at breakfast was a glorious still life, topped with bananas, blueberries, peaches, and strawberries. And coffee in the big white cup even more delicious when I looked up from my reading and saw the three aging “Amigos” walking down Main Street in their baseball caps and white socks, a little brown dog trotting along ahead of them.

As I write this, I hear a plane droning far away in the mid-morning sky, and I remember when I was eight or nine and had never been on a plane before. I would bend back my head and stare at the silver light leaving its trail of longing against the vast sky and in that moment, there was only the airplane, me, and the kind of ache you feel when you’ve been away from home too long.

I want more moments like that, and I know they’re there if I give up some of the mindless rushing around, slow down, attend to the moment, stop and smell the iris. What better month than June to wake up.